True Leaders Believe Dissent Is an Obligation

These are head-spinning times for those of us who think about the best ways to lead and the most effective ways to compete. What defines acceptable personal behavior (let alone behavior worth emulating) among public officials? Why would executives at so many iconic organizations — Volkswagen, Wells Fargo, FIFA — tolerate behavior so egregious that it threatens the very future of their organizations? How should innovators with a fierce sense of ambition handle the criticisms and objections that inevitably come their way and make sure that confidence does not turn into bombast?

In a world hungry for great leadership, these are just a few of the questions that too many leaders seem incapable of answering. I don’t pretend to have easy answers myself. But I do know that the best leaders I’ve studied — executives and entrepreneurs who have created enduring economic value based on sound human values — recognize and embrace the “obligation to dissent.” Put simply, you can’t be an effective leader in business, politics, or society unless you encourage those around you to speak their minds, to bring attention to hypocrisy and misbehavior, and to be as direct and strong-willed in their evaluations of you as you are in your strategies and plans for them.

I first encountered the term last year, in an intriguing interview with a CEO named Victor Ho, cofounder of a customer loyalty company that has raised more than $100 million in venture funding. Ho talked about his childhood, his college years, and the experiences that shaped his entrepreneurial instincts. He also talked about his stint at McKinsey & Company, the blue-chip consulting firm, and one subversive takeaway. “The strongest lesson I learned at McKinsey that I now share with every new hire is what they call the ‘obligation to dissent,’” he told the New York Times. “It means that the youngest, most junior person in any given meeting is the most capable to disagree with the most senior person in the room.”

What a powerful image. What a contrast to what usually happens in the corridors of power. The obligation to dissent is in fact a hallmark of McKinsey culture, established and enshrined decades ago by Marvin Bower, the legendary head of the world’s most celebrated consulting firm. A biography of Bower describes the first encounter between the larger-than-life leader and Fred Gluck, a former managing director of the firm. Gluck bumped into Bower, who asked how things were going with his maiden assignment at the firm. Gluck answered honestly and told Bower he thought the partners were approaching the engagement all wrong.

The next morning, Gluck found a note asking him to report to Bower’s office. He assumed he would be fired. Instead, he found Bower on the phone with the project leader, discussing Gluck’s critique and agreeing that the newcomer was right. They scrapped the approach, refused to charge the client for the work, and started over. “This obligation to dissent, this was Marvin’s principle,” one senior consultant told the biographer. “It came directly from him….And very few people have the guts to dissent.”

Another McKinsey alum, Robin Richards, chair and CEO of the CareerArc Group, makes it clear how he wants his colleagues to behave. “Don’t have a meeting with your boss where you agree with him on everything he says,” Richards explained. “If you have an obligation to dissent, then we get the best minds and we get the best outcomes. People like living in that environment. They feel valuable. People become fearless.”

Truth be told, very few people have the guts to dissent, very few people become fearless, because very few leaders emphasize and celebrate their obligation to do so. Edgar Schein, professor emeritus at MIT Sloan School of Management and an expert on leadership and culture, has spent decades studying the attributes that define great executives. One of the attributes he highlights time and again is humility — the sort that invites dissent. Sadly, that kind of humility is all too rare.

Schein once asked a group of students what it means to be promoted to the rank of manager. “They said without hesitation, ‘It means I can now tell others what to do.’” That’s precisely the know-it-all style of leadership that has led to so much crisis and disappointment. “Deep down, many of us believe that if you are not winning, you are losing,” Schein warns. The “tacit assumption” among executives “is that life is fundamentally and always a competition.” But humility and ambition, he argues, need not be at odds. Instead, humility in the service of ambition is the most effective and sustainable mindset for leaders who aspire to do big things in a world filled with huge unknowns.

So here’s to humility. Here’s to dissent. And here’s to a more fruitful style of leadership than we’ve seen of late.